Annual Playlist: The Best Albums of 2022

I regret to inform you, dear reader, that I have lied to you. Okay, maybe not a full-on fib, perhaps exaggeration is a better description? Granted this space has been prone to the occasional melodramatic post so that shouldn’t be too surprising, but I still feel like I should come clean: Last year, despite my insistences to the contrary, was not necessarily a great year for music. While there were certainly a bunch of excellent releases, in hindsight it wasn’t as good on the whole as I thought it was when I put 2021’s version of this list together.

The good news? 2022 was mostly killer, very little filler. At minimum, it certainly felt like there were more big time albums released by big time artists all year long. And, for whatever it’s worth, I had a much tougher time whittling down the 150+ albums I listened to this year into the tidy top 10(ish) list you have before you.

Anyways, enough preamble. Let’s get on with it, and get to the good stuff. Before we hit the Honorable Mentions, I have a couple bonus categories to share.

Missed the Boat: The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die – Illusory Walls

Bonus Category #1 goes to the 2021 album that I was a bit late to the party on. I didn’t find out about TWIABPaIANLATD (how’s that for an acronym?) until early 2022, meaning Illusory Walls didn’t make my top 10 last year. If I had listened to this album earlier, however, you can bet it would have made the cut. Illusory Walls, TWIABP’s fourth album, was recorded during the height of the pandemic, following the departure of guitarists Tyler Bussey and Dylan Balliett and the death of founding member Tom Diaz. That turnover and angst results in a titanic record that is equal parts soaring and detailed. The climax of “Died in the Prison of the Holy Office” is a facemelter, and final two tracks “Infinite Josh” and “Fewer Afraid” are both 15+ minute epics. At bare minimum, this is an album that leaves an impression.

Shades of: Coheed & Cambria, Early Pixies, Led Zepplin’s “Kashmir”

Must Listen Tracks: Died in the Prison of the Holy Office, Infinite Josh, Fewer Afraid

Robert Baratheon Memorial “Seven Hells What Am I To Make Of This” Award: Taylor Swift – Midnights & Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers

The second bonus category goes to two of the year’s biggest albums, that served as each other’s unlikely kindred spirits. Taylor Swift’s Midnights and Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers are concept albums covering some similar thematic terrain. They both cover ideas of insecurity, self-doubt, emotional trauma, and feature both artists interrogating their own larger-than-life myths. The key difference comes at the end of each album, where Swift re-embraces her own legend (“What if I told you I was a mastermind?”) while Lamar lays down his self-appointed mantle of savior/Compton’s human sacrifice (“I choose me, I’m sorry”). Albums of this magnitude carrying this much weight from artists of this pedigree should be a lock for the top 10, right? Well…not exactly. MM&TBS is a difficult, unwieldy record documenting Lamar’s journey through therapy. It’s challenging and layered, but also messy and full of the contradictions you’d expect for someone who has, as he says on opening track “United in Grief”, “been going through something.” It’s not the magnum opus that To Pimp a Butterfly was (which I suspect is a feature, not a bug). It’s something more personal and complicated. As for Midnights, a positive reading of the album is that it, as Swift’s tenth record, a stunning career retrospective combining elements of everything that came before it while settling back into a familiar groove with producer Jack Antonoff, who is once again deep in his bag. A less charitable analysis: It’s kind of just okay and rehashes a lot of familiar ground both thematically and sonically (the bonus tracks featuring Aaron Dessner’s production pop in a way that Antonoff’s don’t, likely due to overexposure to the latter’s work), and feels like a step down from folklore and evermore. I’m still not sure where I fall on either album just yet, but records that took up this much oxygen this year deserve their own space.

Shades of: Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar. Let’s be real, you already know what they sound like.

Midnights Must Listen Tracks: Anti-Hero, You’re On Your Own Kid, Bejeweled

MM&TBS Must Listen Tracks: Father Time, Count Me Out, Mother I Sober

Honorable Mention: The 1975 – Being Funny In A Foreign Language

Speaking of music I’m unsure about, I go back and forth on The 1975 pretty much every time I listen to them. Are they overrated, underrated, properly rated? The people in my life that like them absolutely LOVE them, which has always made me question my lukewarm feelings about their stuff. They’re arguably the biggest alt-rock band in the world, but in general, I find their vibe and Matt Healy’s persona a bit exhausting. Having said that, I will reluctantly admit that when they’re good, they’re really good. Being Funny In A Foreign Language, the band’s fifth record, has plenty of those “good” moments. Jack Antonoff is on production here, and his fingerprints are all over this one. The inherent eighties-ness of The 1975’s music is dialed up to 11, a predictable outcome with Antonoff on the mix. But, I think that’s a good thing. Songs like “Looking for Somebody (To Love)”, which is basically a Phil Collins/Bleachers track with Healy on vocals, actually sound great. The album, especially the first half or so, restores a bit of the fun back to The 1975’s music, something I felt the last couple albums lacked. Plus, a string section is a good way to get me in your corner, and Foreign Language has plenty of that. I’m still not sure I’m sold on this band, but I definitely liked this album.

Shades of: The 1975 makes a Bleachers album.

Must Listen Tracks: Happiness, Looking for Somebody (To Love), I’m In Love With You

Honorable Mention: Mapache – Roscoe’s Dream

Mapache is the work of duo Clay Finch and Sam Blasucci, who have created, in their words, “one of the most formidable cosmic-folk acts around”. Roscoe’s Dream is their third studio album of originals (excluding 2021’s 3, which was comprised of covers), and represents a leap forward for the group. This is still the same pure, unadulterated 60s-inspired California folk-rock from their previous two records, but they’ve added some new dimensions. Album opener “I Love My Dog” and “Love Can’t Hold Me” are two examples of how the band has expanded beyond just an acoustic guitar/vocal harmonies setup. Hell, the band even plugs in a few times, like on roots-rocker “Diana” and the hazy “Pearl and Swine”. The end product is a fuller, deeper sound and their most complete record to date.

Shades of: The Eagles, José Feliciano, sipping a margarita on the beach

Must Listen Tracks: I Love My Dog, Diana, Love Can’t Hold Me

Honorable Mention: Weyes Blood – And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow

Weyes Blood’s 2019 release Titanic Rising is one of my favorite albums ever. September’s And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow is the follow-up to that record, the second installment in a planned trilogy, and a worthy sequel. The woman behind Weyes Blood, Natalie Mering, is up to her usual tricks here. The album is incredibly lush and cinematic, dense chamber-pop drawing heavy inspiration from the late 60s/early 70s, with Mering’s vocals soaring above it all. “The Worst Is Done” feels like the album’s climax, a glittery 6 minutes that has a bit more juice than the rest of the album’s more measured pace. If Titanic Rising sounded like being submerged in slow motion to the oceans depths, Hearts Aglow sounds like cruising around Mars in a flying saucer, and is all the better for it.

Shades of: Eleanor Rigby, the best 70s power ballads, being simultaneously underwater and in outer space

Must Listen Tracks: It’s Not Just Me It’s Everybody, Children of the Empire, The Worst Is Done

10. Gang of Youths – angel in realtime.

angel in realtime. is the long awaited follow up to Australian alt-rockers Gang of Youth’s 2017 record Go Farther In Lightness, and it delivers. The album was written following the death of frontman David Le’aupepe’s father in 2018, and is Le’aupepe’s catharsis and response to that man’s complicated past and passing. It’s a long record clocking in at over an hour, but it’s also the kind of album that earns that time spent. “in the wake of your leave” and “the angel of 8th ave” is a powerful 1-2 punch in the album’s early stage, and lead single “the man himself” is the emotional backbone of the record’s second half. It’s no coincidence that some of angel in realtime.‘s best moments feature sampling from indigenous music from the Pacific islands, which serves as a poignant underscore to Le’aupepe’s contemplation on both his and his father’s identities.

Shades of: U2-style arena rock with a dash more introspection

Must Listen Tracks: in the wake of your leave, the angel of 8th ave, the man himself

9. Vince Staples – RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART

It shouldn’t sound this easy to make a great album. But Vince Staples, at his best, has a unique talent to make the difficult seem effortless. RAMONA PARK is a reflection on Staples’ past, present, and the changes from Point A (Ramona Park is the neigborhood in Long Beach where Staples grew up) to Point B (a successful, critically acclaimed artist) therein. On “AYE (FREE THE HOMIES)”, he raps “Took a loss, took a risk, now I’m back in the mix / watch who you keeping around when you rich”, which sets the tone for the rest of the album. Staples ruminates on how he’s grown, what he’s left behind, and what he wishes he could change throughout the record, but tackles those introspections and challenging themes with some of the smoothest songs of the year. RAMONA PARK manages to capture the feel of the best West Coast rap while still sounding like its own thing, an impressive feat. Again, it shouldn’t be this easy to make something simply sound this good. But Vince Staples seems to do it time and time again.

Shades of: Long Beach in the summer, G-Funk feeling without the G or the Funk

Must Listen Tracks: AYE (FREE THE HOMIES), WHEN SPARKS FLY, LEMONADE

8. The Smile – A Light For Attracting Attention

It’s unclear if we’re ever going to get another Radiohead album. But if The Smile’s debut record is any indication, whenever Thom Yorke, Johnny Greenwood and producer Nigel Godrich get together they’re still plenty capable of putting out great music. I won’t say that A Light for Attracting Attention is indistinguishable from a Radiohead record, but it scratches the itch for any fan dying for a followup to 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool. Yorke’s voice is still ghostly, and his pen is still full of existential dread. Greenwood’s creativity remains unmatched, and when given the opportunity (like on “You Will Never Work in Television Again” ) he can still shred. I personally love “Speech Bubbles”, which has the hallmarks of much of Greenwood and Yorke’s finest work.

Shades of: Radiohead (did you expect something else here?)

Must Listen Tracks: You Will Never Work in Television Again, Speech Bubbles, We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings

7. PUP – THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND

I don’t think I’ve ever been more seen by a lyric than when PUP lead singer/guitarist Stefan Babcock howls “Too old for teen angst, too young to be washed” on “PUPTHEBAND Inc. Is Filing for Bankruptcy”, the final track of PUP’s fourth studio album THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND. Babcock was on to something there: Four albums in, how much angst can an inherently angsty band keep getting away with? The answer, apparently, is a lot. Especially when you wrap it up with pitch-perfect hooks the way PUP does. This was undeniably my album of the summer. The record’s first half is relentless and impossible to not sing along to at the top of your lungs. “Robot Writes a Love Song” might genuinely be my song of the year. Try to listen to that one without having a big goofy grin on your face and throwing up the rock-on hand gesture, I dare you. The album’s second half is weaker, sure. But man, those first 4-5 songs are so electrifying that it doesn’t matter.

Shades of: Peak Pop Punk (the good kind), feeling too old for teen angst but too young to be washed, binary solos, jumping on your bed and yelling out the chorus alone in your room

Must Listen Tracks: Totally Fine, Robot Writes a Love Song, Matilda

6. The Beths – Expert In A Dying Field

2022 was a big year for 90s-inspired indie rock girls. Soccer Mommy, Beach Bunny, beabadoobee, Frankie Cosmos, and more all released albums this year. But The Beths, led by frontwoman and songwriter Elizabeth Stokes, blew away the competition with their third studio album Expert in a Dying Field. Do you like catchy hooks, sunny melodies, driving guitars, and lyrics that are equally flowery metaphor and incisive emotions? Then this is the album for you. Expert in a Dying Field has some slower tracks, but the record really shines when it picks up the pace and lets it rip (like on “Head in the Clouds” and “When You Know You Know”). I love how Stokes’ voice twists and turns and flickers, which is used to great effect on the title track and “I Want To Listen”. A truly irresistible album, with no real skips.

Shades of: All of those artists I mentioned at the beginning of the write up, 1997, that first warm day of spring

Must Listen Tracks: Expert in a Dying Field, Head in the Clouds, When You Know You Know

Halftime – Some Songs I Really Liked

Just like last year, there are a bunch of songs I adored, even if the album they’re on didn’t make the cut for this list. Here’s a few worth a mention:

The Killers – The Getting By II: I had The Killers’ Pressure Machine at #9 on my list last year. This year, they released a deluxe edition of that album featuring alternate versions of “The Getting By”. The original is good, but Version II is such a dramatic improvement it made me retroactively angry that this wasn’t the one they went with on the album.

Arctic Monkeys – Body Paint: Some people love Arctic Monkeys’ new, lounge-music-on-Saturn-inspired sound. I am not one of those people (it’s fine and I don’t dislike it, but it’s not my favorite). Their 2022 album, The Car, is more of the same direction set out in their 2018 release, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino. But for one glorious moment we get “Body Paint”, which is a perfect marriage between Canto Bight and indie sleaze. Hopefully we see the old and new Monkeys sounds merge more often in the future.

Denzel Curry – Walkin’: This might be my favorite rap song of the year. Curry’s Melt My Eyez See the Future was an excellent album that felt like a fever dream in the best way. He’s cooking on this track, which features a couple beat changes, ethereal production, and some killer verses. Oh, and the music video (linked above) rules too.

Friendship – Chomp Chomp: Philly-based band Friendship was a new discovery for me this year. “Chomp Chomp” is like if The National and Dave Matthews Band got together for the ultimate dad-rock collab. The thumb-twiddling harmonica is an irrepressible ear-worm.

Say Sue Me – Around Me: Say Sue Me’s brand of Korean-based indie surfer rock is on full display in this song, an extremely catchy melody and chorus. The album, The Last Thing Left, was one of the last cuts I had to make when putting this list together, and is definitely worth a listen.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Change: If you’re in the market for a 13 minute prog-rock jam, I’ve got just the song for you. King Gizzard puts out so much music (they released three albums this year alone) that their catalog can be a bit intimidating. They’re typically a bit jammy for me, but on “Change” (and the album Changes), it’s less about the jams and more about MGMT-style cosmic alt-rock, which candidly was a bit more my speed.

If you want to check out some other songs I loved from this year, check out my Best of: 2022 playlist below (and at the Apple Music link here):

5. Alvvays – Blue Rev

“Immersive” would be one word I’d use to describe Blue Rev, Alvvays’ third album. “Stunning” would probably be another. It’s an impressive piece of power pop that features the band firing on all cylinders, and doing everything you’d want them to do. Throughout the record Alvvays plays it upbeat, they take it down a notch, they let the lyrics shine through, there are solos, and sometimes all of that happens on one song. “Belinda Says” was Pitchfork’s song of the year and with good reason: It’s a perfect match of style (guitar solos, a key change, an earworm of a chorus) and substance (songs about an unexpected pregnancy probably shouldn’t rock this hard, but here we are), much like the rest of the album. I also love “After the Earthquake”, but again picking favorites on this record is tough. Its greatness comes at you in waves.

Shades of: More of that 90s alt-rock inspo, but like you’re trapped in a cloud

Must Listen Tracks: Easy on Your Own?, After the Earthquake, Belinda Says

4. Peach Pit – From 2 to 3

I was a bit disappointed with Peach Pit’s 2020 album You and Your Friends, which I felt took a step back from their 2018 debut record Being So Normal. On From 2 to 3, Peach Pit figured it out in a pretty decisive fashion. They ditched the synth and crunchier guitar parts, added back in their signature noodley lead guitar, and included a folk-y dimension (the band jokingly refers to it as “y’all-ternative”) that was previously absent. The result is their best album yet. “Vickie” and “Pepsi on the House” are reminiscent of their initial sound, while “Look Out”, “Up Granville” and “Last Days of Lonesome” provide that more grounded, acoustic element. “Give Up Baby Go” is the platonic ideal of a Peach Pit song, and probably their best track. But the real star is once again guitarist Chris Vanderkooy, who wields his instrument like a fencer wields a rapier. His acrobatic riffs whip around almost every song, arcing across a chorus here, striking on a solo there, deking one way then wriggling another around a bridge.

Shades of: Twin Peaks (the band, not the show), car rides in the summertime

Must Listen Tracks: Vickie, Lips Like Yours, Give Up Baby Go

3. MJ Lenderman – Boat Songs

I regret to inform you all I am indeed the target audience for this album. The lead single “Hangover Game” covers the Michael Jordan conspiracy theory that his legendary Flu Game was actually just a rough day after a late night on the town. There’s another song about Tom Brady replacing Dan Marino on a cereal box. Nobody has ever quite been able to match Neil Young’s legendary  “lightning smothered in molasses” guitar tone, but MJ Lenderman, lead guitarist of indie rock group Wednesday, nearly does so here on Boat Songs, his first solo outing. Sports references, awesome lead guitar riffs, a wry sense of humor? Yup, Lenderman has checked all of my boxes here. You think songs like “Hangover Game”, “You Have Bought Yourself a Boat”, and “You Are Every Girl To Me” are classics that will stick with you forever (and they do), then Lenderman brings the house down with a facemelter in “Tastes Like It Costs”. This is a short album with 10 tracks covering a tight 34 minutes, but it could have been 34 hours and I wouldn’t have cared.

Shades of: Mac DeMarco’s sense of humor mixed with Neil Young’s guitar tone

Must Listen Tracks: Hangover Game, You Have Bought Yourself A Boat, Tastes Just Like It Costs

2. Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You

It’s unfortunate that Big Thief already has an album called Masterpiece, because by every measure 2022’s Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You qualifies for that title. In a way, though, their 2016 debut album set the wheels in motion for their magnum opus. Dragon New Warm Mountain is a sprawling, immense achievement that sees the Brooklyn-based band simultaneously push their boundaries further than ever before, while still maintaining the core of their sound developed on Masterpiece. This record covers a ton of ground, from dark urban indie rock (“Blurred View”) to straight up country (“Spud Infinity” and “Red Moon”), with plenty of shades in between (“Little Things”, “Simulation Swarm”) and beyond (“Time Escaping”). Big Thief recorded this album in five months across four different locations: Upstate New York, Topanga Canyon in California, the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, and the Rocky Mountains. If you listen closely, you can practically hear every location’s influence. The recording sessions apparently produced 45 tracks, which was then cut down to 20 for the album. If the other 25 songs are half as good as what ended up on DNWMIBIY, then Big Thief might have a third masterpiece on their hands soon enough.

Shades of: Brooklyn at night, the desert at sunrise, Neil Young’s Harvest

Must Listen Tracks: Change, Time Escaping, Little Things, Simulation Swarm

1. Black Country, New Road – Ants From Up There

“And though England is mine / I must leave it all behind” are the first lyrics you hear on Ants From Up There, the sophomore album from Black Country, New Road. They might seem relatively innocuous at face value, but when considering they’re sung by now-ex lead singer Isaac Wood, who left the band for personal reasons one month before Ants From Up There‘s release in February, they carry the foreboding weight of an ACME anvil. It’s a shame that Wood isn’t around to reap the rewards of Ants, which is a huge, Nevermind-esque step up from their 2021 debut For the First Time. There are certain records that have the ability to stop you dead in your tracks the first time you hear it. Ants From Up There definitely had that effect on me. It can be bombastic, it can be reserved. It’s both extremely melancholy and incredibly triumphant. It’s somehow raw yet polished. It kind of sounds like your favorite alt-rock album from the 2000s. It’s self-referential and complex, with musical themes and movements that circle back on each other like a symphony. “Good Will Hunting” has the god-tier chorus “She had Billie Eilish style / Moving to Berlin for a little while”. Do I know what that means? Not particularly, but I know it’s cool as hell. “Snow Globes” sounds like it should be belted out in an empty forest on a clear winter day, and that’s exactly how Wood sings it. Final track “Basketball Shoes” towers over the rest of the record, with more endings than The Return of the King. Full disclaimer: this album might not be for everybody, and I mean that in the least snobbish way possible. It’s weird and sad and occasionally has a bit too much going on. But if it is for you, it’ll be timeless.

Shades of: Early Arcade Fire, The National, Animal Collective, Peter Gabriel’s cover of “Heroes”

Must Listen Tracks: Chaos Space Marine, Good Will Hunting, The Place Where He Inserted The Blade, Basketball Shoes

That wraps up the list for 2022! What a year for music, and I can say that as sincerely as humanly possible. No melodrama or exaggeration required.